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Collar Sores - Advice?


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Does anyone have experience with their dog getting sores underneath the collar? Callie has soft, long fur and she has 4-5 sores in various stages of healing on the underside of her neck (none on the sides towards her ears or the top) and they're underneath where the collar sits.

 

They don't seem to hurt her unless they're touched directly (I found them by massaging her neck before bed) and she pulled away from me when I ran my fingers over one of them so I investigated. On Friday there was a raw, wet one (no blood) and by Saturday morning it had dried out and started to scab over. Because the rest were dry and healing, we didn't try to put anything on them since we didn't want to wet them and I'll be calling the vet today to see how they think we should proceed, but I wanted to see if anyone else had experience with this and any advice.

 

She's been to the beach a lot lately and we're thinking that they were caused by moisture getting trapped combined with the heat and the collar rubbing. We thought we were being pretty good about taking the collar off as soon as we got home to avoid this, but obviously not. She had a regular nylon collar that was always loose enough to put two fingers underneath. We've also always taken it off at night to give her a break since she wears it all day.

 

We just got one of those plastic-y waterproof collars to replace hers with because it's smoother and won't hold moisture against her skin, so we're hoping that the new collar in combination with not wearing a collar at all when we're home/at night will help heal the sores quickly and then we'll need to figure out a way to prevent them from happening again. I'd leave the collar off all day, but I'm afraid that the maintenance guys could come at any time (we rent and our AC leaks) and accidentally let her out without any tags! :(

 

Again, any suggestions would be appreciated!

 

 

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Yep. Those would be hot spots. Thud gets them big time, if I don't remove his collar when he gets into water (or switch out for a dry one immediately). He will ALSO get them other places like his arm pits or anywhere his body traps moisture. I have to make sure he gets rinsed with clean water and then dried THOROUGHLY. Kind of a pain, but it's not uncommon.


Typical treatment is to shave around the wound and then use... something I don't remember but got at the vet's recommendation. Once we started making sure he and his collar were dry we stopped having issues.

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If she's not a flight risk, I'd take the collar off immediately and leave it off as much as possible. Look into harnesses maybe for walks/swims. The nylon collars are okay for not holding on to water. Even using that, I'd take the collar off as soon as I got home, and wouldn't put it on again 'til the next walk.

 

E: I'm not great at reading before I've been fully caffeinated. I see you've addressed some of these in your OP. Sorry!

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@CptJack - We'll start using her doggie verson of the ShamWOW (lol, I love that thing) to towel her neck dry after romps even though she dries quick. Good to know the "hot spots" are common.

 

@urge to herd - Looking up Wonder Dust, thanks!

 

@Sekah - We can't leave her collar off completely in public because we'd get a ticket (city ordinances and such) :unsure: We're hoping that water proof one will do the trick. We got a cheap one at Petsmart yesterday to hold her over until a nicer one comes in the mail this week. The one we bought on sale is kind of a hard, smooth plastic (still bendy, but not very malleable), but the one we ordered is a very nice soft but durable plastic that will hopefully be more comfortable than the temp one.

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It's a royal pain with Thud. Thud has about 2 tons of coat, and is honestly probably part of the source of the trouble. He also loves to swim. Awkward.

 

As an aside, switch out that water proof collar when she's done swimming - get duplicate tags or something, maybe? It won't get wet and keep things wet like leather, but it will slow down her fur drying UNDER it unless it's got quite a bit of space around it.

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Although I generally don't like choke collars, this just might be the time to consider recommending one. The sit much looser on the neck and are thinner, both meaning they won't hold water in. You can get them in chain, of course, but also nylon or cotton cord.

 

You can always attach something on one of the links so that it will stop before going into choke mode.

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I highly recommend one of these collars:

http://gundogsupply.com/k-9-komfort-w--dee-3-4--collar.html

 

Levi wears one every day and has for a few years now. The darn thing looks brand new and it comes with a free brass ID plate. It does not hold moisture and he swims with it on spring through fall and no awful smell. They come in fun colors too. I personally think identification is way too important to be taking collars off. dogs get lost every day that were not thought to be a flight risk and microchips are certainly not something I would want to rely on solely, even though all my animals have them as back up.

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Wouldn't the problem with any of the wider collars be that the fur beneath them doesn't try out as fast? I don't think it's really a matter of whether or not the collar dries, but its trapping the moisture for the fur that'd cause the problem.

 

I've never had the issue, though, so it's only conjecture on my part.

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@CptJack - Good call. We did just get a duplicate tag for the collar that's coming in the mail so we'll just swap out the wet one for a dry one next time she's swimming. Which, unfortunately, won't be for a while. They found E.coli in the water near us, so we're avoiding the beach until the environmental people tell us it's clear.

 

@Maralynn - The harness is a good idea for walks!! But we don't let her play with a harness on (or leave her home alone with it) because she always gets tangled up in it, even if it's a snug fit (we've tried every style and fit over the last year, she's just that...talented). Then she inevitably gets trampled by another dog while she's untangling herself or waddling over to us to be freed, and then she gets mad and hides behind my legs for the rest of the trip to pout about being run over. :P Goofy dog doesn't like being restricted in her bendy movements.

 

@GentleLake - We do have a Starmark plastic choker we could use! She hasn't worn it in a long time so it might need a brief reintroduction, but we may have to use that as Plan B if the collar swap/collar off strategy doesn't work at keeping the sores away long-term.

 

The vet said some diluted hydrogen peroxide for cleaning any new/reopened sores and some Neosporin would do the trick for treatment. And as for prevention, she mentioned that same things you all have! Thanks for your suggestions! :)

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@waffles - Yes, that's almost exactly what we ordered online (from a different company) but it's not as wide.

 

@GentleLake - I had the same thought. I'm thinking we can easily just wipe this one off with a towel and pop it back on after drying her neck with a towel too, whereas a nylon collar would hold the moisture against her skin.

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Most nylon collars are woven and can 'soak up' water and take a while to dry. The plastic collars are actually totally impervious to water, so while they might hold water in if they're put on top of water, they themselves aren't wet and adding another layer of stuff that needs to dry.

 

So if you dry the dog and put the collar back on, there's nothing wet there with plastic. Dry the dog and put a nylon collar on, it's wet and has rewet the dog.

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@GentleLake - Even if we towel off her normal collar, it still stays moist and gross. We usually have to hang it up overnight for it be completely dry. These plastic ones are completely dry once you towel them off. The texture feels like slick rubber - they're malleable so they move with the dog, but they're not "rubbery" so they don't catch on the fur.

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Nylon collars on a dog that just swam or as bathed can be wet still the next day. The collar I posted above is dry to the touch almost right away on a warm day. Same for the more plastic type ones as well, just towel it off and it's bone dry. ,If my dog had hot spots under the the collar I would just take it off and dry the dogs fur under the collar, then put the collar back on.

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I get that the nylon absorbs water itself and the plastic doesn't. I'm not that dumb. :P

 

But I've never toweled a wet dog off and had the dog truly be dry. There's moisture in the fur and that's what I'm thinking the plastic would still hold in and hinder from drying as quickly as the rest of the fur.

 

Like I said, I've never had this problem with my dogs. Never a hot spot anywhere. I hope you can figure out something that works for her, whatever it ends up being.

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@GentleLake - Okay, now I get what you were saying! :) I'm worried about that too - I'm hoping it'll be better than the nylon collar, though we are going to make sure she's collar-less as soon as we get home so her fur can dry, like you said. It's just that if she has to have a collar on, it may as well be this easy dry one!

 

ETA - I know we're definitely the cause of the spots because we should have prevented them to begin with, but Callie's skin also appears to be pretty sensitive as we've found out in this first year with her. Between the recurring mange (ugh, poor snoot) and these sore spots, the vet knows our beastie quite well. :wacko:

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You might want to give any collar a good soak in vinegar to kill off any bacteria from the old wounds. Also, it may have started due to a chemical sensitivity to the collar, so you may not want to use nylon on her in any form, collar, harness, etc. Getting the area dry as soon as possible is a great idea, but you might want to rinse with fresh clean water first. Adding one cup of vinegar to a gallon of water and using that as rinse water will help with anything she may be harboring on her skin, however it really stings on open wounds, so it's best used as a preventative.

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@Gideon's Girl - Will do! She's only been wearing that temporary plastic one we bought and the sores are already looking much better and there are no new ones. I'll wash her nylon collar in case we do go back to it when the weather cools off (we haven't had an issue at all in the colder weather). I hadn't thought of cleaning it to remove bacteria before using it again.

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Good advice so far and it sounds like the sores are already improving - so I just offer my suggestion because no one has yet said it. Somewhat similar to what Gentle Lake suggested, maybe another type of collar altogether would be helpful. When I first had my Sheltie X rescue girl, I was told by my puppy class instructor (who owned Shelties and competed in high-level obedience with them) to use a rolled leather collar. It would prevent hair breakage. I know that is not your problem in this thread, but you did say that your dog had a very thick ruff.

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I have been using the gun dog supply collars for about 5 years now, we do keep the collars lose and have found that we had no problems once we switched. I think even though the collars are wide as they don't hold moisture the fur dries as there is nothing damp, even the rolled one we used previously stayed damp and caused issues around the neck.

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Awesome, we have one of those too! Although now I'm starting to think that this beastie is wayyyyy spoiled because we seem to already have everything for her!

 

At least we have lots of options to try to keep those sores away once they heal up. Thanks again for all the advice - we'll keep all of these in mind!

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I have multiple flat nylon collars with boomerang collar tags on each. (The flat tags, not the dangly ones.) Collar gets wet or gross, it goes in the wash and air dries on the screen door.

 

I do not recommend nylon chokes. A lot of the (Lassie) Collie people I knew when I was in rescue had tried and discarded them. They don't slip freely and sometimes not at all. And as they age they get fuzzy and they often become tangled in fur. Parachute cord is a wonderful thing in many applications. Dog collars aren't one of them.

 

Someone mentioned that the hair being wet under the dog's collar is as much of a problem as the wet collar. True. Loose collar is better for allowing circulation of air. But I would swap it out with a better fitting one when the dog is dry.

 

What I always used for hot spots was Panalog ointment. But my experience with hot spots was usually on the hip/croup/ butt area.

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